The Road to Villainy
by Maeve of Winter
Summary: Frustrated at being unable to save VenTech from his father's incompetence and uncertain of his own future as he prepares to graduate from college, Dean decides his best bet is to become a supervillain. Dean/Sirena.


Only a month to go until graduation, and Dean had no idea what he was going to do after college. He had no idea what he even wanted to do after college.

There wasn't a place for him at VenTech Industries. His father had made that abundantly clear.

"Dean, research and scientific positions are for educated people," Pop had informed him with a very superior chuckle as he peered down his glasses at him. "Get a doctorate like I did and then we'll talk."

"Couldn't I do some kind of work with the board, then?" Dean offered desperately. "I mean, they liked my suggestion about splitting the company between consumer manufacturing and your super science projects. Maybe I could come up with more solutions for everything that's going wrong?"

Pop's smile flickered briefly but before it returned, this time looking much more artificial. "That's a pretty fantasy, but I don't think the board would listen to your ideas."

"They listen to my ideas when they come from you," Dean pointed out.

"Yes, well—hmm." Pop hastily changed the subject. "Don't you have graduations plans to make?"

He had no plans at all, and that bothered him. His Gamma Psi Delta brothers were getting day-drunk every afternoon to celebrate their upcoming departure from college, but Dean didn't feel even slightly ready to leave.

Given Ventech's increasing troubles, it was probably a blessing that his father didn't want him, and to be honest, Dean hadn't been looking forward to a lifetime of parenting Pop until he ran the company into the ground. But he wasn't sure would he would look forward to, or how to find out. When he went to ask Sirena, the most self-reliant person he knew, she seemed to have her path already fully mapped.

"Gonna work as the Number Two for one of the Guild villains I met," she told him excitedly. "She said I had real talent and that she'd be glad to take me on. I'm just glad I got someplace to go and don't hafta crawl back to my dad's penthouse."

Dean couldn't help be slightly envious that she already had her future figured out. "How'd you meet her? Through your dad?"

Sirena waved a hand. "Bettie Rage? Nah. She was doing pin-up photos on a beach once when I was swimming nearby. We got to talking, I introduced myself, and she said she thought I'd make a good addition to her crew." She contemplated Dean for a moment. "Hey, you should think about it."

"Doing pin-up photos?" Dean glanced down at himself. Those remaining nanobots had put him in the best physical shape of his life, making him far stronger and more resilient than any other human (even Brock), but he still wasn't sure if he would make all that great of a model.

Sirena chuckled. "I'd buy them, that's for sure." She smirked as Dean's face heated. "But I meant working as a villain. If I can do it, so can you."

The possibility had never so much as crossed Dean's mind, and now it floored him. "Oh—I, well, um. I really don't know."

"I don't know, either," Sirena admitted. "But I do know it's gonna get me away from my dad and get him to stop controlling my life. And that's what you want, too, right?"

Dean was still too stunned to form much of a response. "It is," he admitted. "But I still don't . . . I'd have to think about it."

At first he couldn't help but feel guilty for even contemplating the idea of villainy, but as graduation loomed, he found himself more and more seriously considering that option. But he didn't know how he would even get started. Sirena had gotten an offer just by chance, but Dean would need to find someone to help him get in the door.

He turned to Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, who'd given him advice before and had been the one to convince him to join Gamma Psi Delta.

She was surprised and almost impressed by his choice. "Wow, supervillainy, huh? What brought that on?"

"The lack of availability of entry-level positions for new college grads," Dean lied, voicing a recurring complaint he'd heard from numerous classmates.

"Yeah, I'm surprised that your dad hasn't tanked your uncle's company yet, too," Dr. Mrs. The Monarch replied conversationally. "Probably just a matter of time, though. Good for you for getting out while you can.

Dean cringed at how easily she'd seen through him. "Please don't tell The Monarch. I don't want him to rub it in Pop's face and hurt his feelings," he pleaded with her.

"No problem," she said easily. "And call me Sheila. You think we could make this into a formal thing? It wouldn't hurt for me to get in some hours as a villainous mentor—I'm in the running for Guild Council Member of the Year," she explained.

Sheila put him in contact with Truckules ("Great guy, he was the first villain I worked for as a Number Two."), and maybe it was because of her connections, but Dean was accepted into the position despite not knowing how to tell a carburetor from a fan belt.

He learned, though. He might not have known much when he joined up with Truckules, but soon enough, he became The Mechanic, Truckules's Number Two, leading truck heists and highjacking convoys, capable of taking a car apart and putting it back together blindfolded.

Plus, he loved his job, plain and simple. His weapon was an oversized wrench and his outfit was a simple black jumpsuit, which he'd selected for himself as a reference to the black speedsuits he'd used to wear back at the Compound. And not only did he get to pick his own uniform as long as he wore the company trucker hat with Truckules's insignia, but he and a few other Number Twos and henches had started a street-racing ring in their spare time and were considering making a formal racing league for the Guild.

By the time Truckules retired from full-scale villainy to just run a chop shop, Dean already had gotten an offer from the Zoocreeper to Number Two for him, and he was thrilled that someone wanted him to work for them enough to seek him out on their own. Even if he suspected that the reason the Zoocreeper wanted him was mainly so he could repair the robot cheetahs.

It wasn't long into his gig as the Zoocreeper's Jungle Jouster that Sirena paid him a visit. They'd kept up with each other since leaving college, but with their demanding career paths, it was hard to find regular times to hang out.

"Bettie is retiring at the end of the year," she told him, appreciatively accepting the Jungle Juice the robot tiger carried over to them with the drink tray balancing on its head.

(Dean had come up with adding the drink to their gimmick and also designed and created the robot tiger. He was very proud.)

The news brought him to frown. "Who are you going to work for with her gone?"

"That's just it," Sirena said with a triumphant smile. "I'm gonna be my own woman. Bettie offered to lemme take over her identity—said she didn't need it if she was gonna be retired and that she'd rather see it live on."

"She's going to make you a legacy?" Dean asked, stunned. It was an incredibly rare honor for a villain to pass on their identity to another, especially to a Number Two rather than a family member. "Wow."

"Well, don't be too starstruck," Sirena warned him. "I've got a proposition for ya. I want ya to come and Number Two for me. It'll be just the two 'a us, like back in college, except now we don't hafta worry about our dads micromanaging our every freakin' move. Whaddya say?"

It sounded good when spoken out loud, but even after a few years into being a villain, Dean still retained his old sense of caution. "You sure we're ready for this? That we have the experience we need to strike out on our own?"

Sirena shrugged. "Why not? 'Sides, we got almost a year to get ready for it."

Dean only took a moment to think it over. He wanted to at least finish the Panthera prototypes he was working on for the Zoocreeper and leave him with a lion and jaguar to add to the tiger and cheetah robot forces. As long as he was able to complete those, he saw no reason why the Zoocreeper would begrudge his departure. And Dean wondered if he and Sirena might be able to incorporate the leopard bot he'd been working on into their own theme. Or maybe they could use some kind of android or synthetic hybrid? There were so many possibilities, and Dean found himself excited to face them.

He flashed a grin at her. "I'm in."

"Thought ya would be," Sirena replied with a smirk.

So Sirena became the new Bettie and Dean became her Rageboy. He barely needed to change his uniform—as the Jungle Jouster, he'd worn a pair of skin-tight leopard-print pants (flexible enough for melee combat, but durable enough to survive the Panthera robots should they ever be turned against him) and matching cat ears, so he just added a pair of black leather gloves to give it his own twist. He really liked how they looked, really slick and almost dangerous. Sometimes he also wore a form-fitting black leather jacket, but that was mostly so it could be easily zipped up to cover his bare chest when he was in polite company.

The new additions were greeted with enthusiasm by Sirena when he first modelled them for her in their shared bedroom.

"I love the leather," she said appreciatively, her gazing roaming up and down his body. "It looks good on you. Real good."

"Thanks." Dean tried not to blush too hard, but he could feel his face heating as he stared at her legs, mesmerized by the contrast of her lacy black thigh-highs with her smooth, tan skin. "You look awfully good, too."

Sirena gave him a wicked grin as she yanked him down to the bed. "I know."

They might have been thrilled with themselves, but their families were another story. Sirena's father, for one, wasn't exactly overjoyed at her career move.

"He's an egomaniac," Sirena explained. "Thinks it's a big insult to him that I'd rather follow in another villain's footsteps instead 'a his." She waved a hand impatiently. "He don't understand that I'd just rather leave the 'We can rule together' thing in Star Wars and have my independence."

Dean's family's reactions were more mixed—it always had been. Uncle Hatred couldn't have been more proud that Dean had gone onto villainy just like he had and was so thrilled that he gave Dean and Sirena his second Hovertank for Christmas one year. Hank always maintained he was extremely upset but also that he would be pacified if Dean did something he wanted at that moment—use his villainy get Shallow Gravy an exclusive recording contract, help him build Enrique Matassa's villainous reputation, or make him a bunch of animal robots so he could then manage the Chimp E-Den. Needless to say, Dean didn't take Hank's supposed outrage over his villainy too seriously. And even though Dean would have thought he'd been disappointed, Brock was surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing, seeming almost relieved.

"You're your own man, and you've got to make your own choices," he told Dean, clamping a huge hand onto his shoulder. "Don't apologize for that. To anyone." He glanced in Pop's direction, eyes narrowed. "Ever."

Meanwhile, Pop was angry at everything Dean had done and passive-aggressive whenever he returned to the Compound for the holidays, particularly because he always brought Sirena with him. To the shock of approximately no one, it always culminated in an argument, mostly before the meal and sometimes afterward. This year, it actually happened during Christmas dinner, escalating just after the turkey had been served.

"After all that I did for you!" Pop exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "So many times I tried to show you the way, but what do you do? Spit in my face and toss me aside. Toss our family aside!" He threw down his napkin and stormed away from the table.

"I know you didn't toss us aside, Dean," Uncle Hatred assured him.

Dean patted him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Uncle Hatred. I really appreciate it."

Unperturbed, Hank was raking in his winnings from Dr. White and Dr. Quizboy. "Told you they wouldn't be able to make it to dessert without arguing."

Action Man sighed as he, too, relinquished several twenties to Hank. "If only Rusty would have brought up him wearing a speedsuit as his first villain outfit like he did every other year, I would have taken the pot," he grumbled to Colonel Gentleman.

Dean glanced at Sirena, who, by now accustomed to his father creating family drama, just shrugged and refilled his wine glass and then her own, before raising it up for a toast.

Without hesitation, he clinked his glass to hers, offering her a clandestine smile that she returned, showing that she was having the same thought as he.

Their fathers might be convinced they were wasting their lives, but it was only now, after stepping out of their fathers' shadows, that they finally felt like they had a life in the first place.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

There are few references playing off of the joke that Bettie Rage is a villainous version of Bettie Page. Sirena first meeting Bettie on the beach is a reference to Bettie's numerous bikini photoshoots. And Dean's leopard-print leggings and leopard robots are a reference to the most well known of Bettie's swimsuits, her leopard-print bikini. His black leather gloves are meant to be like the black leather gloves Bettie sometimes wore during bondage photoshoots.

Finally, Dean being the "Rageboy" to Sirena's Bettie Rage is a play on the word "pageboy." If it were Bettie Page, he'd be the Pageboy, but since he's working for Bettie Rage, he's the Rageboy.


End file.
